Writing “into the Dark” for NaNoWriMo 2019: The Set-Up

So as I mentioned in my last post, I’m not entirely starting with a blank canvas for my NaNoWriMo project. I’m not sure if that officially still makes it a “pantsed” novel or not, but I’m not here to argue semantics, so we’ll just roll with it!

Let me first say that this writing process, what Dean Wesley Smith calls “writing into the dark“, is actually my natural writing process. When I sat down to write my first novel at 14 (in 1996), this is what I did.

It worked for two novels. And then after that… I never finished another novel again until 2016… when I finally outlined the damn thing. And with my epic romantic fantasy Reign of Dust (only my 2nd finished novel since 14), I outlined it hardcore.

I thought “finally I’ve figured this out! I’m a major plotter! That’s been my issue all these years! I just needed to plot!”

Except then I wrote Bargain at Bravebank entirely without plotting. By accident. Having no idea in the beginning what was going to happen for the rest of the book. And I still finished it.

Not only did I finish it, but it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written to date. And I had the most fun writing it I’ve had since I was 14 and starting novel after novel that never went anywhere.

And I realized the truth is… I prefer this process to plotting, outlining, drafting, editing, and rewriting.

So… for my next novel, I’m going to fully embrace this process. I’m going to experiment and see if I really do like it better, and how it all works out. (And I’ll be documenting how it all goes down here on the blog… for posterity!)

HOWEVER! I am not starting from absolutely nothing as Dean Wesley Smith does. I think, after you’ve written hundreds of novels like he has, it would make sense to start with nothing. But I have not written hundreds of novels (yet). My brain is still almost exploding daily with all the endless ideas still waiting to be written. So it’s likely impossible (at least for the foreseeable future) that I’ll ever start a book with a completely blank slate.

That being said, what do I know so far about this book? What exactly will I be starting out with?

A few of my favorite things!

Obviously, I know the events that happened previously, in Book 1. So naturally I will be continuing on from where Book 1 left off. Over the last few months I’ve been rereading Bargain at Bravebank and fixing a few things here and there as the world has developed, and as I’ve done that, I’ve been creating a summary of each chapter in my Series Bible notebook. That way, if I need a refresher of anything that happened in Book 1 down the road in later books, it will be easy to reference without having to reread the entire novel.

Also, I know that the following will be included for sure:

• A bar fight
• A stagecoach/wagon chase
• A corrupt sheriff
• An old artifact of great importance
• A well-dressed villain
• A quest for revenge
• A quest for redemption
• Someone gets laid
• Another piece of a much bigger picture is revealed…

Pretty much a good number of my favorite things. 😉 Which is the entire point of writing books for me. Because that’s the other thing I realized while writing Bargain at Bravebank.

Since it wasn’t really planned, I was just winging it. And I was filling it chock-full of all of my own favorite things I loved to see in stories. And as a result… it became my very favorite book. (So far.)

You can bet I’ll be doing the same thing through all the rest of the books in this series, too! (And every book I write for the rest of my life, too. Even Reign of Dust is going to get an overhaul where I make it more of what I love and less of what I think other people are expecting of it.) And so, my NaNoWriMo 2019 project, Bastard of Blessing, will feature all of the above, plus more of the stuff I love, and who knows what else!

It should be a fun ride, for sure.

I can’t wait!